The Art Of Manipulation
by Smudge93
Summary: Sort of a prologue to 5.04. Notes inside for fear of spoilers!


**Author's Chapter Notes:**

Well a few people have put their thoughts up on just who it was that threw Dean into the future and I have my own screwball notion.....so here it is! It was Cas conveniently rescuing Dean from Zach at the end that put this in my head. It was almost like he'd planned it....or someone else had planned it for him!

The brother line near the end is a quote that I read somewhere and really liked and wanted to use.

Without seeing 5.03 and 5.04 a lot of this might not make sense. This is a one shot for now but I may take it further, if I ever get Fight finished that is!!

The Great Art Of Manipulation

Sam had called back to let Bobby know about the hunters, to warn him in case they sought Bobby out to find out where Sam was. That's when he'd told him.

The news about Lucifer.

So Lucifer had turned up and told Sam that he was his vessel and now the brothers really were on opposite side of the fence. Two trains heading towards one another in a tunnel and only one track.

Bobby had thought that news was bad until Sam had told him how Dean had just blown him off. Told him that they were still better off apart. That's when the steam started to leak from Bobby's ears.

He had closed the phone on Sam with a promise of assistance. Resisting the urge to just wheel himself all the way to the oldest Winchester and shake some sense into him, he instead opened the phone and called up the number he was looking for.

"Get your ass over here, now! I need your help…..I don't care, God can wait for five minutes. I need to speak to ya…..no it's nothing to do with that, I don't care if I never walk again as long as you do this one thing for me. It's something that I need your help to sort, a' for it gets outta hand again."

Bobby threw the phone down, snatched a pad and a pen and started to write.

----

Castiel looked at the pieces of paper in his hand and frowned. "I do not like doing this to him, his trust in my kind is limited as it is…..if he ever found out that this was me….I do not think that I can help." He handed the papers back over to the man in the wheelchair. "I will not trick him."

"It's not a trick, just a hard push in the right direction."

"No."

Bobby sighed. "Ok, I didn't want to do this, really I didn't, but you're leaving me with no other choice. I know that it was you that set Sam free to go hunt down Lillith." He held up his hand to stay the angel's protest. "The signs were there and Anna confirmed it. I know, it was orders but still, you were the one that opened the door Cas. If you don't help me with this, I'll tell Dean. I'll tell him that it was all your fault that his brother got free and ended up frying Lillith. I'll tell him that the apocalypse was your doing. Think he'll still talk to you after that?"

"You would not do that." The angel looked at him with something that Bobby registered as close to panic in his eyes.

"If you make me choose between him talking to you or talking to his brother, Sam'll win every time. He needs Dean, whether he knows that or not at the moment. Dean is the only one that can stop Sam from doing something stupid." Bobby paused. "And unfortunately, he's the only one that'll be able to get near enough him to stop him if he does go darkside. Either way, they need to be together Cas. Whatever is going on in those boys heads, I want it sorted and you're the only one that I've got that'll help me. So you're gonna help me. You can find God later."

Castiel looked down as Bobby thrust the papers into his hand again. "You really think that this'll work. That he'll believe this is his future?"

Bobby shook his head sadly. "I think he already thinks this. I think that he believes his brother will turn, hell I think Sam believes that he'll turn. Don't you see? That's why Sam walked away. To put as much distance between Dean and any fallout that he can."

"When really he should be using his brother as his shield."

Bobby nodded. "Dean has always been Sam's shield Cas, his protector. If he stops now then we loose Sam and if that happens….well we lose them both. I mean look what happened when Dean went to Hell? Sam fell apart and Ruby picked up the pieces, as for what Dean told me about what he did down there….. Cas, they need each other to stay sane. And I ain't letting anything happen to either of them just because they're too damn stubborn to talk it out. It's not happening on my watch, not again." He wheeled closer to the angel. "So will you help me or do I have to go kick some Winchester butt on my own?"

"I will help, if you believe that this is the answer. You are the one that knows them best." Castiel knelt down in front of him. "Won't Dean guess that this is a trick?"

"I'm hoping his worry for his brother and his hatred for your former boss will be enough for him not to notice the deliberate flaws in this plan. Zach has messed with Dean's head before, he'll have no reason to question him doing it again. I wish I could be there but I can't, 'cos the first thing he'll do is come looking for me, but you need to be. You need to be close to watch over him, make him see what he has to do. I've written you a little cameo in the piece." Bobby grinned broadly. "He told me where he took you, that's what gave me the idea."

"A love guru?" Castiel smiled as he thought of den of iniquity that Dean had just taken him to. "He would never believe this of me."

"It's all I could come up with at short notice so you'll just have t' sell it to him."

"Sell it to him?"

Bobby snorted at the angel's confused expression. "Make him believe that it's real. Make him believe that if he stops caring about where his brother is and what he's doing, then he'll stop caring about everything, except revenge. Our Dean's not too keen on revenge, it's screwed his family up one too many times for him to let it rule him. He's watched what it did to his father, to his brother."

The angel nodded, remembering Dean's words to him in the motel room when he had asked for his help seeking out Raphael, his distain when he had thought that what Castiel sought was not God's location but revenge for his own death. "It may work, I do not know what Dean seeks but it is not revenge."

"Oh….and I've another little thing that you can do that'll really make him feel that he's stop caring." Bobby handed the other paper to Castiel.

The angel looked horrified. "He will kill me. You cannot expect me to do this to his car." Castiel read on. "He would not do this to his friends."

"It's all just window dressing for the main display. Besides, it's not like it's real. He'll hate the Dean that I've come up with here, which is what I want him to do. Hell I hate the Dean that I've come up with here."

"So by making Dean think that this is Zachariah's doing and that he is making a mistake by refusing Michael, he will call his brother and bring him back under his protection? Won't he wonder why his future self has not already sought Michael out? Why don't you just speak to him instead?"

"Tell him the angels have gone, given up on the battle, deserted mankind....that'll annoy him. Cas, how many times did you ask Dean to do something for you and he did the complete opposite?" Bobby crossed his arms.

"I see your point. I need time to organise this, gather my powers. A day at the most."

"You've got an hour."

The angel shrugged. "I can improvise. One hour it is. Castiel went to leave and then stopped. "What if it doesn't work? What if he comes back and tells Michael yes?"

"Then we're really no worse off that we are just now. It'll work, you just need to have a little faith…..and Cas?.......Dean will never say yes.....you know that as well as I do. Not after what he went through in Hell." Bobby smiled at Castiel and was surprised when the angel smiled warmly back.

"You are a good man, Robert Singer, it sorrows me that I cannot help you." He stared pointedly at the hunter's legs.

Bobby laughed. "Not as much as it sorrows me. This is how you can help me Cas, fix my boys for me."

Castiel's smile softened and he touched the hunter's shoulder. "I will make them remember."

"Remember what?" Bobby looked back up at the angel.

"That it takes two men, to make one brother."

With that he was gone.

The elder hunter turned and picked up the picture that he had dug out from his journal. A young Sam and Dean stared back at him from it, laughter on their faces, their arms slung loosely around each others shoulders.

Two boys just enjoying being brothers.

"I pray to God that you can Cas, I really do."


End file.
